Mind is mind because of things, and things are things because of mind. The mind does not exist on its own, as the mind is only the experiencer of objects and objects are only the experience of the mind. Neither exist without the other and both are impermanent phenomena.
Consciousness is conditioned by the body (which includes the brain) and is limited to certain perceptions because of this.
On a side note, I have read of verified near death experiences in which the person was officially brain dead. They were able to recall certain things they saw the Dr.s doing and things around the room after having left the physical body.
This isnt what I originally read years ago, but goes along the lines of it:
For the people who had a near-death experience and out of body experience [their recollection of resuscitation] was really quite accurate and I decided then to ask the control group, the people whod had a cardiac arrest but had no recollection of anything at all. I asked them if they would reenact their resuscitation scenario and tell me what they thought that we had done to resuscitate them. And what I found is that many of the patients couldnt even guess as to what wed done. They had no idea at all. And then some of them did make guesses, but these were based on TV hospital dramas that theyd seen. I found that what they reported was widely inaccurate. So there was a stark contrast really in the very accurate out of body experiences reported and then the guesses that the control group had made., Dr. Sartori reported.
While research like this may never be enough to convince dogmatic skeptics, the medical evidence for near death experience continues to challenge us to reexamine our beliefs about what lies beyond death.
On another side note, why is it imagination to assume that more exists than what we are able to perceive or measure thus far? Perhaps it is more naive to assume that only that which is measurable and physical can exist. I have observed that some who rely on science and reason and refute spiritual claims are in fact no different than those who share the opposite view, they just happen to have a different perspective, yet are no more intelligent or reasonable than those who have opposing views (sometimes less intelligent too).
Dreams almost always seem real until we wake up from them, then the things that took place in them often dont make sense to us any more
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